


glowing out along the river bend

by stormss



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Episode: so4e02 Lost Found Fucked, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17640557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormss/pseuds/stormss
Summary: Margo stops short, because those aren't Eliot's eyes.-Or, Margo tries to grapple with the fact that her best friend may be gone forever.





	glowing out along the river bend

**Author's Note:**

> hello! 
> 
> so i've been having...feelings about the fact that margo & eliot are torn apart in every possible way right now, and this idea came to me after watching the sneak peek for 4x03. so, some of the dialogue in this is lifted right from that and everything else is just my speculation!! tbh i'm not in love with how this turned out but i really wanted to post something so hopefully it's somewhat enjoyable!!
> 
> ((the title is from m83's "splendor"))

Margo loves Eliot ferociously and unquestionably. Eliot loves Margo abundantly and without hesitation. 

There's really no way to put it that doesn't make their friendship sound like inflated cliché. A lot of it should really be attributed to fate; they've known each other and loved each other for forty timelines, and after a while it feels like coming home. Every. Damn. Time. 

They're half of a whole. Linked together through lifetimes by a thin, red string. And they fight like brats, sometimes, but they always find their way back to one another, their issues settled, usually in less than twenty-four hours. They cry over romantic conquests and drink too much, and when things get serious they buckle down and figure shit out. Because that's how it goes — they're EliotandMargo, forever and always. 

And nothing could take that away.

* * *

" _Fucking_ dickhole gods." 

As the words slip out, something in the back of her mind tells her that she should maybe be more cautious with how she talks about the gods, but in this moment, she really can't bring herself to care. Margo huffs, blowing some loose hair from her face as she slowly gets to her feet. Bacchus' portal has dropped her, ungracefully, she should add, flat on her ass in some sketchy alley.  _At least he got New York right,_ she thinks, knowing full well that he could've planted her in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. She wipes her palms on her pants, already painfully aware of jut how ruined the white satin is from Fillorian soil and ominous puddles on the streets of the big city. Margo makes a sour face, because besides getting her memories back, literally _nothing_ could make this day worse. 

A taxi drives by, despite her outstretched hand, and mucky grey water splashes over her shoes. 

Of course. 

Margo pulls her phone from her pocket, now accessorized with a miserable crack running up and down the screen. There's no use in trying to open the Uber app; it takes her half a second to remember that she's a damned magician, and only another few seconds of frantic tuts to realize that there's no magic for her to channel. It's like breathing through a straw — there's the tiniest amount of it, she can feel it filtering around her, but it feels impossible to access. 

"Great," Margo mutters, looking around for any landmarks to help her get back to the apartment she'd been abducted from. She can only hope that whatever happened to her in Fillory that plopped her memories back in her head had happened to her friends; and she really has nowhere else to turn except for Marina and her apparent loophole that gave her a tap on magic. 

It turns out to be easier than she thought. Only a few heads turn her way when she begins storming down the street, completely covered in filth with an icy glare pointed at any of the passerby who dare to meet her gaze. Margo's only been walking for about half a block until she notices the familiar high-rise building, and the faintest glimmer of the wards up near the windows of the penthouse on the top floor. Bacchus apparently knew what he was doing when he sent her away, then, which sort of puts a metaphorical band-aid on the pissy attitude she still holds against him. Setting her shoulders, Margo walks into the building like she owns the place, and bypasses the other tenants, striding toward the elevator until she's on it.

She storms toward the door at the end of the hall, pushing open the door with flourish, not even pausing to realize that everyone's staring at her as she barges in. Everything is white noise, because there's  _Eliot,_ standing in the middle of the room, facing the others. She doesn't even consider the blood drying in flecks over his face or the menacing,  _wrong_ smile on his lips. 

Her heart leaps to her throat. "Oh, thank Christ —" 

"Wait." A figure jumps in front of her, and she's taken aback by Quentin, looking just as disheveled and bloody as Eliot. She furrows her brows and his fingers linger on her bicep. Very pointedly, he tries to tell her a million things with a look and two words: "Not. Eliot." 

Margo glances at Eliot, wanting to tell Quentin that he's crazy — of course that's him, of course that's the person that they love more than anything. She continues moving forward, but then she stops short, because those aren't Eliot's eyes. Then the fucker starts talking, and Margo's hands start shaking. 

"I'm so glad you came." Eliot — _not Eliot?_ — draws out his words, practically looking right into Margo's soul. "Saves me from having to hunt you down...I've got so much of that ahead of me already." 

Margo hates the waver in her voice; the fear that's impossible to hide. "What is he talking about?" 

"Uh, he's hunting gods." Quentin provides, warily looking between not-Eliot and herself. He looks tired and terrified, and Margo's definitely there with him. But he's still trying to protect them all; he's searching for that approval from the stranger before them, trying to make sure that he's got the right idea and isn't digging them into a deeper hole. Quentin starts taking a few steps forward, very clearly putting space between this...thing, and the rest of them. "Vengeance, for locking you in the castle." 

That's when it clicks, and Margo involuntarily shivers. The others have figured it out, too; that the damned weasel of a monster locked away in Castle Blackspire possessed Eliot. It's wearing his body like a fucking designer jacket, and that's when the rage starts settling in, a close companion to the unending fear that's seeping through her bones. 

"Oh, they did more than that." The Monster stares directly at her, like it knows what it's doing. And it's  _smiling._ "And so did you. You tried to kill me." 

It laughs, and it sounds so wrong coming out of Eliot's mouth. Quentin steps back toward her, obviously trying to be some sort of comforting presence. Margo can barely acknowledge him — she's glued to watching her best friend, eyes wide, as his body floats around the room like it exists on another astral plane. It's unnerving, watching as Eliot's body moves in ways he's never moved before, arms raised as The Monster turns him around, and it all feels so wrong. 

And completely fucked up. 

Margo swallows. 

"You're all part of it." 

It echoes through the room. It isn't a question — it's finalized, it's a statement, it's a threatening promise in so many words. The Monster looks gleeful as the words come out, clearly aware that Eliot's voice catches on all of them like fishing hooks, cutting through their flesh and leaving them with open wounds. 

"You don't have to do this." 

That's Kady, ever the protector, from somewhere on the other side of the room. And that entertains the hell out of The Monster, because it lets out a shrill laugh from his new spot in the gold chair, one leg crossed over the other. 

"But I _want_ to." 

Marina barges in, then. Margo doesn't know where she came from, and she’s actually kind of surprised she came back at all. Margo also can’t fully wrap her mind around what's happening with her various magical tools when she does, but the invisible lines of the ward begin to shimmer and power directly centralizes where the gold chair is, letting out a bright burst of light that has all of them taking a few steps back. The Monster looks frustrated; it goes to move from the chair, but the ward has restrained him to the spot. 

"Come on." Marina says, and they all quickly file from the room. Margo leaves reluctantly — she wants this thing to get the fuck out of Eliot's body, but she doesn't want any harm to come to him. She feels a hand on her shoulder, a sort of guiding light, and the distance between them all and The Monster closes as Marina's already strong ward is fortified. They all stumble into a bedroom space, all big windows and minimal decoration, and Margo immediately sinks into an elaborately designed chair, bringing her knees to her chest. 

She tries — and sort of fails — to not absolutely lose her shit. 

* * *

For the following moments, Margo beats herself up. 

They should've had a backup plan, or multiple, when they went to Castle Blackspire in the first place. She should've done something to stop this from happening, even if the rational voice in the back of her mind tells her that there's really nothing she could have done. Her eye keeps drifting to Quentin, his face now clean from the dried blood but panic still set into his features. He hasn't stopped pacing, clearly trying to formulate a plan, after giving them all the information he knew from his memories. 

Margo's got about a million things running through her mind. There's the jumbled mess of memories from her life as Janet Pluchinsky, which are hazy and dreamlike; and there's the harsh truth that her kingdom is being polluted by the trashy socialite of the gods. But everything goes totally silent when she hears Q's stories; his own attempt at working through the fading memories in his mind of being dragged across the globe, watching as The Monster hunted for gods and killed innocent bystanders. 

He starts shaking about halfway through, which brings them to where they are now: Margo still slouching in on herself, Quentin pacing, and the others talking in hushed voices in the corner of the room. Part of her wonders how she didn't figure out that that thing out there wasn't Eliot; it really should've been obvious because  _her_ Eliot, in a graphic t-shirt? No fucking way. Marina still hasn't explained her whole gold-chair-based plan, but Margo figures she wouldn't be much help, anyway. 

"You okay?" Quentin's voice is harrowed and barely above a whisper, as he drops down into the chair next to hers, exhaustion now taking over. 

She shrugs, and ignores the strain in her neck as she leans over to rest her head against his shoulder. She misses these moments with him, even if she'd never admit it out loud — she misses when they could bond back at the cottage, whenever Eliot was being a shit. And Christ, she wishes she could have more of those moments now, because she doesn't even know if he's still _alive_. And what the hell is she supposed to do with that? What is she going to do if her best friend really is gone, just like that, forever? How is she supposed to go on without him there? She can handle herself, she's done so for most of her life, really, but she doesn't _want_  a world where her best friend's life is snubbed out like an out-of-season candle; discarded and left without a second thought. She doesn't want to think of a world where his last moments were likely lived out in terror, completely and utterly alone. 

"Is he..." Margo stops, scared of the question. She bites them out, trying to swallow down her fear like she does when she's standing in front of her council. "Is he gone?" 

Quentin lets out a small, pained noise, from somewhere deep in his chest. Tears begin to well in her good eye, and her anxiety begins to rise even higher at his total avoidance of actually giving her an answer. 

"Q —" 

"I don't know." Quentin whispers, voice thick with unshed tears. "I wish I did but we have no way of knowing for sure." 

Margo begins fiddling with her eyepatch, which has become a strange coping mechanism since she initially lost her eye. That's when she starts thinking, mulling things over in her mind. It might not be something she wants to pry into; if she _can_ look into whether or not Eliot's alive, she doesn't know that the answer would be desirable. But the idea has already come to her, and she slowly turns to Quentin. She knows she's not alone in this longing for an answer, either way.

She slowly pulls off the eyepatch, the fairy eye adjusting to the suddenness of the light. 

"Maybe we can." 

* * *

_"You know, I think you're the only person I've ever actually loved."_

_It's a big statement, coming from the girl who seduced her way through multiple organizations at school during her undergrad to become top bitch. That's only one side of her, sure, but the other sides are pragmatic and hard-to-read. But with Eliot, there's never a need to lie. She isn't superficial, she just likes to have fun; she isn't a bitch, she just wears her honesty like a coat of armour. And it's worked for her through life, and she knows Eliot's privy to such tactics, too._

_They're sort of the perfect match._

_"And I thank you for that, Bambi." Eliot grins, knocking his shoulder against hers. They're camped out in his room tonight — the first-years would be arriving in a few days for the entrance exam, and things would shift out of focus in both of their lives for a while. This is a moment for just the two of them, quiet and illuminated by the moon, both of them just tipsy enough to make everything feel floaty. "I'm kidding. I'm pretty sure you're the only person I'll_ ever  _love. Like, for real."_

_Eliot kisses the side of her head when she smiles, and then they cheers to another year of parties and being cursed into attracting the wrong kinds of people. They clink glasses and Margo keeps them icy cold with a basic spell, but everything else about the moment keeps her warm._

* * *

Nobody really loves the plan, but tough shit. When Margo Hanson sets her mind to something, there's no way she isn't going through with it. Marina flexes her fingers and the wards dip out, just long enough for Margo to slip in the room. As Janet, she remembers not understanding the strange shapes and shifting light in the air, but as herself, she easily recognizes the unfiltered magic; she can use the fairy eye to help her understand the truths hidden in plain sight — and that's what she's hoping will happen when she comes in contact with The Monster, for the few moments the others are allowing her. 

"Oh, hello Margo." 

She tries to hide her flinch. It's completely Eliot and unequivocally  _not Eliot_ all at the same time, but her goal here is not to talk; it's to try and  _see._

So Margo lets The Monster speak, keeping him occupied while trying to search for weak spots in the glamour; she's not entirely used to the power that fairy sight gives her, especially in a world with rationed magic. She's running out of hope, because a fuckload of god-like energy radiates off of him; when she looks at him with the fairy eye, it creates an effect not unlike a bad sci-fi movie where the pervy hero acquires some x-ray technology. She only sees a swirling, crimson-gold mass when she looks deeper — so no horns or gnarled, sharp teeth, like Josh had hypothesized. 

But then she gets it. A flash of familiar eyes, a flash of  _Eliot,_ drained and barely conscious, if she could even call it that. Margo's not entirely sure that there is a way to explain this strange magical possession effectively, but every time she catches that glimpse of her best friend, he seems to be drifting farther and farther away, into a pool of inky black nothingness. 

And that can't be good. 

Her mouth trembles as she tries to hold in a scream or sob or both, and it takes all of her willpower to not move in to clobber this thing into pieces on the spot. It's still smiling at her like it wanted her to know that Eliot's still alive, but barely, and that ties her stomach into knots. Now, it has another advantage; another thing to hold over their heads. 

She knocks insistently on the door and Marina lets her out, into the hallway they'd been cramped into while Margo had gone in to execute her plan. 

"He's alive." 

It's all she has to say before they all jump into action. Quentin immediately launches into a seventeen-step plan, the first of which being something about finding Julia and Alice; this happens as Josh, ever the realist in these situations, produces a flask and hands it to her. She downs half the damned thing without even tasting it, fixing the eyepatch over her eye once more. 

"I don't care what we do, as long as we get El back." Margo says, stepping into High King mode. Everyone had sort of been dancing around her since they'd regained their memories; they knew how close she and Eliot were, they knew that things would not be pretty if they couldn't save him. But now that she knew her best friend was in there, nothing could stop her from saving him — and the others are completely on board. 

Another moment or two passes before the wards flicker again, only this time Marina is halfway through smoking a cigarette out the open window and looks just as confused as they are. Quentin runs into the other room first, as everyone else calls out to him; they quickly follow, only to find a room sans-Monster. 

"I told you, I'm not here to play." 

The voice startles them all, but they're too late to do anything. Margo can barely let out a warning before she feels a hand settle on her shoulder and within seconds, she's gone. 

* * *

The rain pummels down above them as Margo tries to catch her balance. 

The Monster had portalled them somewhere with grey skies and big, towering trees. It wanders in front of her with Eliot's hands behind his back, the rain flattening his curls and sticking them to his forehead. Margo sets her jaw and stomps forward. This bastard cocked out on killing her back there; she's positive it won't do it here, without having the pleasure of her friends watching. 

"Hey!" She yells, grabbing Eliot's elbow with a strong grip. "What the fuck do you want, huh? You could take a different body." 

A raindrop trails down her nose, and she wipes at it with her sleeve. The Monster turns and faces her, looking confused but somehow pleased at the same time — probably at her defiance. It seems to like the fire in her, and she's definitely willing to whip more of it out if she means she could save Eliot. 

"I like this body." The Monster says, unblinking. "I especially like that  _you_ are so upset about it." 

"You could just give Eliot back." Margo suggests, throwing her hands up. "And we'll let you go on and do your god-killing in peace." 

With furrowed brows, it whines, low and slow: "That's what Quentin wanted, too." 

Margo runs her tongue over her bottom lip, trying to level with this thing. Then she takes a step back in slight shock because Eliot's eyes widen, and that faint golden glint isn't there, and this is — this is him. 

"Bambi?" Eliot's voice is small, and frantic, his eyes darting around. Blood has started to drip from his nose, becoming a mess with the rain, and her throat feels thick. With another blink, Eliot's on his knees, twisted up in pain; and with another, there's a menacing laugh, and Margo screws her eyes shut in frustration. 

"Is that what you wanted?" 

"I'm going to save him." Margo states, making direct eye-contact with The Monster, whose trademark golden glare has returned to Eliot's eyes. "And I'm going to kill you." 

The Monster's laugh is shrill and scarily childlike; before it launches Margo against a tree with the force of its magic, and she lands with a thud.She's still lifted off the air, feet kicking as The Monster slowly approaches, twirling Eliot's finger in the air. It's controlling him like a puppet, and she winces as a deep gash starts running down the length of her bicep with the finger's movement. An invisible force starts choking her out, closing her windpipe so that death will take a long time to come. She just hopes that the others will figure this out; she hopes that this thing won't cut through all of them like this. 

And that's when she sees the air ripple, and with a blink there's Penny23, hovering just behind The Monster. She knows what's going to happen and she doesn't want it to because she thinks she can get through to this thing, she knows she can save Eliot, but she barely gets out a strangled  _no! —_ before she blinks and she's out of the rain, partially dry, and surrounded by her friends as she coughs. This isn't Marina's penthouse, which is probably smart, but she's lost her chance with The Monster; especially as she notices Julia in the doorway, putting up one of her goddess wards that'll have to rival the power of their new enemy. 

"We don't have long." Margo says. 

That's all she  _can_ say. She doesn't have the words for anything else. 

* * *

It's a long couple of nights working through the rough outline of some sort of plan, using the fact that they're wanted by The Monster to their advantage. Eventually, the plan's ready to be set in motion, and Margo is terrified.

She wants — she needs this to work. But they'd had to talk about the possibility of trapping this thing in Eliot's body forever for the greater good (which, no way. Not after she found out that he's alive in there). They'd also talked about how the spell they were planning could kill them both, and she understands that, she does, but it still terrifies her to her core that she may not get to see Eliot again.

And it's destroying her.

They need someone in Fillory to get them access back to Castle Blackspire; Margo volunteers, being High King and all, so she doesn't actually get to see everything going down, much to her dismay. She can't even really keep in contact with the others as their plan is enacted, and has to rely on hope, which she doesn't generally like to do. She can still feel the consequences of Bacchus' stint in her kingdom and knows that dealing with him will be her next priority, but as she lingers around the secret doorway to Blackspire, she can't help but to think about all the things that could be going wrong on Earth. 

Thankfully, they travel to her castle right on time, and they all look a little disheveled. Margo hesitates only for a moment before she wrenches open the door, a few of her guards on hand to help. They'd found this backdoor into Blackspire a while back, and she's happy that they'd discovered it when they did. Margo watches as The Monster is wrestled back into his prison; the spell Calypso had taught her already on her lips to make sure the ward is secure. 

Moments later, the others emerge. 

Margo really didn't pay attention to all the finite details of their plan, but with some help from Alice's friend Nick and some other gods who really didn't want to see The Monster lingering outside of a cage, and some techniques they knew from school, the goal was essentially to take The Monster out with some god-killing magic and then place it in an enchanted wooden box, similar to those used in Niffin cases, and then bury it in the greatest depths of the prison. And then run. 

It should work on paper, and Margo watches their faces for tells; if it worked or if it didn't. She figures they wouldn't be walking out like they are if it  _didn't_ work, so that gets her hopes up, and then that's when she sees Quentin supporting Eliot's body, way at the back of the group, Penny23 also helping to keep him propped up. 

Margo rushes forward to keep her best friend vertical, but there's some staggering involved as they make it to the empty throne room, the three of them eventually setting Eliot down on the steps, because otherwise they all probably would've gone down. She bites at her thumbnail and kneels next to him, and when he begins to blink his eyes open, she can't contain herself. 

She throws her arms around Eliot, breathing him in, and she feels one of his hands settling on her back and pulling her closer. He mumbles her name into her hair, clearly still a little dazed, and Margo squeezes him tighter, finally letting her tears fall. 

"I'm so sorry." Margo whispers, mostly into his throat. "I'm never leaving you alone again."

She feels him laugh a little, though it sounds kind of pained, before he says: "Well I don't plan on leaving your side. You've got me for life, Bambi."

Margo pulls back and she wipes at her eyes, and her heart swells because she missed him so much. And he definitely looks drained — there's smudges of violet bruises under his eyes, and some dried blood, and she can only imagine how much those memories are going to completely fuck him up. But she'll be there for him, until she dies if she has to. And she looks up and sees Quentin barely holding himself together, so she pulls Eliot in for another hug and kisses the top of his head. 

"I love you." Eliot's voice cracks, and she squeezes his hand. 

"Thank you for that." She whispers, and he breaks out into a smile. "I love you too." 

She steps back to let the others — _read: Quentin_ — reconnect with Eliot, though she plans on keeping her word and not letting him out of her sight, at least for a little while. 

* * *

They decide to let him recover in Fillory, before he moves back to Earth to do god-knows-what with Quentin. But she needs some personal time with Eliot, so she sets him up in her chambers and he sleeps for a solid thirty-six hours, only getting up briefly to eat. And he'll wake up screaming a lot of the time; she'll hug him close, or Q will come in to join them for late-night half-drunken conversations to keep Eliot's mind off what happened. But he's safe, again, and Margo will do everything she can to make sure he gets the help that he needs. 

On the fourth or fifth day since they saved him, Margo pulls Eliot in for a cuddle in her bed; they sit under her covers and sip Fillorian wine that's sort of awful but gets the moment right. He leans his head on her shoulder and they talk a little too seriously about life, but the booze makes it better, and it makes it feel like everything might turn out to be okay. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! this ended up being fairly short by my personal standards and i wrote this in like a day, so please excuse any mistakes! i had some trouble wrapping this up so i resorted to a happy ending but hey — these guys deserve one.
> 
> comments are always greatly appreciated!!
> 
> come say hi on [ tumblr! ](http://lizzogay.tumblr.com/)


End file.
